Is it just me or is Dee Snider kinda hot?
Owl_Eagle
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
Posted on 01/13/2004 10:31:09 AM PST by areafiftyone
While former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill may now be critical of his former boss's policy of liberating Iraq, President George W. Bush can take heart. Someone arguably much hipper than O'Neill has expressed support of Bush's war against Saddam Hussein.
Twisted Sister front man Dee Snider, a brawny guy who gained fame donning makeup and trashy women's clothing, has joined fellow heavy-metal rockers Ted Nugent and Gene Simmons [see "Antiwar Singers Out of Tune With Public," May 13-26, 2003] in saying the war against the former Iraqi dictator was justified. And since O'Neill set a precedent of seeking out rock stars for advice on foreign policy - he toured Africa with U2's Bono -Insight knows he'll be interested in what Snider has to say.
"Weapons of mass destruction or not, he [Saddam] was asking for it, and he got it." Snider told this magazine in late October. "As far as kicking his ass, he deserved it."
Snider, whose self-penned 1984 pop hit "We're Not Gonna Take It" was used as the anthem of Arnold Schwarzenegger's California gubernatorial campaign, argued that the fact that Saddam fell so quickly does not make the toppling of his regime unjustified.
"I feel for the United States in what's going on here, because I liken it to my own experience in life," Snider says. "I'm a big , fairly powerful guy and an intense guy. From time to time, less intense, less powerful, small people will take their shots at me or pick on me, and I'll lay back and I'll be nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, and they keep going and they keep bugging me or whatever. I'm talking about on a business level, not just fisticuffs, although that happens as well. And finally, I'll go, 'You know what? [Forget] this,' and I'll destroy them. And all of a sudden, they'll fall back and say, 'What are you doing?' And people will look around and go, 'Hey dude. You just beat the crap out that guy, verbally or whatever.' And I'll go, 'Wait a minute - this guy has been bugging me, asking for it forever, and now I gave it to him and I'm the bad guy?'
"And that's what's happened in Iraq. Iraq was poking at us, annoying us, acting like they're tough, and then bam - we hit them, and they fell down, and the world is looking at us saying, 'Hey, what did you do that for?' [Saddam] was driving us nuts for years, the sword-rattling was insane, and all of a sudden we beat him up and we're the bad guy."
Snider, who in recent years also has hosted radio talk shows and directed low-budget horror movies, long has had a career intertwined with politics. In 1985, he took on then-senator Al Gore (D-Tenn.) after Gore's wife, Tipper, attacked Twisted Sister through her Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). Testifying at a Senate hearing, Snider defended heavy metal and argued the lyrics were misunderstood. For instance, he said that the Twisted Sister song "Under the Blade," which the PMRC accused of promoting bondage, actually was about fear of surgery.
So Snider surprised many when in 2000 he said he was voting for Gore for president. "Gore was a man whom I think would have had me shot in the eighties," Snider tells Insight. But he says he voted for Gore because he thought Gore would be better for the environment. "Without a planet to argue and fight on, you've got nothing else," Snider says.
Snider describes his own politics as that of a "rational thinking human being - a moderate who judges each situation on its merit and votes accordingly." He says he has voted for Bill Clinton, former Republican New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and independent presidential candidate Ross Perot. "You've got to just be intelligent and vote according to what's best for your city, town or country," he says. Snider also campaigned for Schwarzenegger because he is "a guy who sets goals and gets it done."
But Snider says he was surprised to learn at Schwarzenegger rallies how many Republican fans he has. "A lot of traditional Republican types who I don't exactly blend with [said,] 'Mr. Snider, we love your rock,' and came up and got pictures with me."
Snider also says he got a charge when the recently regrouped Twisted Sister played for American troops in USO shows. "The reaction was tremendous," he says. "The majority of them are in their 20s and 30s, so they grew up on Twisted's music, and others are younger, but now it's this whole nostalgia thing. We're very aggressive performers, so it fits into the whole mentality."
On Dixie Chicks' singer Natalie Maines bashing Bush and the war, Snider's take is that "she had every right to say it" but shouldn't have said it in a foreign country. "I don't think that was super cool," he says. "It's kind of like a family situation. Say what you want to the family within the family, but don't go blabbing it to the neighbors. It's our business, not theirs."
If O'Neill could learn about the Third World by touring Africa with Bono, perhaps he could learn a thing or two about the military and national defense by touring bases and meeting America's brave young men and women with Snider and Twisted Sister.
John Berlau is a writer for Insight.
Owl_Eagle
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
That was a GREAT laymans explanation of the whole thing, LOL!
You obviously got the wrong person ..... or as other's would say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". eeeeewwww!
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